Hello Dad
by vannadear
Summary: Takes place on March 4th 2002 at the end of AtS 'Sleep Tight' and right before BtVS 'Hells Bells'. What if Buffy raised Connor in Quor-Toth instead of Holtz? AU with be BuffyAngel eventually
1. Preface

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters here, and most of the dialogue is from the show, though tweaked to my own special brand.

This fic was spawned from a single idea and then spiraled out of control tearing through the Buffy and Angel 'verses with no abandon:

"What if **Buffy** raised Connor in Quor-Toth _instead_ of Holtz?"

Story takes place on March 4th 2002, at the end of AtS 'Sleep Tight' and right before BtVS 'Hells Bells'.

BtVS/AtS plot rewrites/explanations:

Connor was born on November 19th, 2001. After getting back to the Hyperion and everyone calming down, Fred calls to tell Willow about the bouncing new addition to the LA office. Willow realizes that having a newborn bundle of joy around a vamp with a giant allergic reaction to happiness is a really bad idea, and uses the "Revele" spell to conjure the exact spell she needs to bind Angel's soul.

Willow secretly performs the binding spell while in her little power-trip-because-I-can-mode without telling anyone. ('Revele' is the same spell she uses the next day in the BtVS episode "Smashed" to make Amy's transformation spell) Though she doesn't deem the soul binding important enough to share with anyone but Amy the rat (who was present for the spell and remembers it) she does tell the Scoobies about the miracle birth of Connor, which only sends Buffy further into her Season 6 downward spiral; both for the fact that Angel and Darla have a child together (Instead of she and Angel) and for the fact that Angel didn't care about her enough to tell her himself (This is how a woman sees it) These things, piled on top of the ache of being away from heaven, are the catalyst for Buffy's rampant and abusive sex relationship with Spike-which happens the day after Willow's big news (i.e. Connor being born) in 'Smashed'

Cut to 8 weeks later- March 4th, 2002. After finally calling it quits with Spike, Buffy needs to take a breather from Sunnydale and offers to go LA to pick up the Bridesmaids Dresses for Xander and Anya's Wedding the next day. On the drive back to Sunnydale she comes upon a massive roadblock in the form of Holtz holding Connor hostage while Wolfram & Hart keep them at gunpoint.

Timeline Recap:

-Connor was born on Nov 19th 2001.

-Fred calls and tells Willow that night and Willow binds Angel's soul (without telling anyone but Amy, who was in rat form at the time) then tells the Scooby gang about Angel having a son.

-Buffy and Spike have sex for the first time the very next day.

-Buffy turned 21 on Jan 19th 2002.

-Buffy ends her secret relationship with Spike on Feb 26th at the end of "As You Were,"

-Buffy does some heavy soul searching and Spike-detoxification during the week of February 26th through March 4th, and begins actually healing from all the horrible stuff that's been happening.

-The night before Xander and Anya's wedding (Set to happen on March 5th in BtVS episode 'Hells Bells') Anya realizes that with all the preparations she forgot to pick up the specially made Bridesmaid dresses from the seamstress in LA (The only one in a 500 mile radius that would agree to making the horrible designs Anya came up with)

-Buffy is sent to LA to get the dresses that night as she is the only one without specific Pre-Wedding duties.

-Buffy gets pushed into the dimensional tear with Connor by Holtz, who (once the ex-relationship with Buffy becomes apparent) sees it as the perfect way to torture Angelus; by taking away both his mate and his son.

-Buffy and Connor spend exactly 8 R.T. (Real Time) weeks in Quor-Toth; the equivalent of 14 years in the hell dimension. Buffy is 35, and Connor is 14 by the time they return on April 29th 2002 in the Hyperion lobby.

**Now onto the story...**


	2. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters here, and most of the dialogue is from the show, though tweaked to my own special brand. If I owned them I wouldn't be writing fanfic now would I?

Feedback is loved!

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Buffy sighed before reaching across the Jeep console to prod yet another button on the radio, hoping to hear something tolerable on the waves so late at night. So far, it had seemed to be an effort in futility; as every song she had managed to find was a heavy dirge of screeching guitars and pounding drums, the throbbing beats of which did nothing to quell the uneasy feeling lodged in her gut. She had just picked up the dresses from the demon seamstress when **it** started. Well, actually the seamstress looked pretty human…but Buffy had taken one look at the radioactive green dress she was honor bound to wear (in front of people no less!) and quickly decided that the supposedly human female **had** to be part hell-beast to create such horrible things and still smile cheerfully at Buffy as she left the boutique with the things. She _so_ had to be evil.

Finding nothing worth listening to, she thumbed the power button on the radio before she resigned herself to the rest of the trip in silence. She readjusted her grip on the steering wheel, trying to keep her hands as loose as possible while still holding on; so she wouldn't bend the metal with the steady but uncontrollable tightening of her fingers. Something was wrong. Her senses were going haywire, muscles twitching; she could barely keep focus on the road. She wrenched her right hand away from the wheel, wriggling her fingers in midair in an attempt to coax some of the blood flow back into the pale white digits.

Really now, she wasn't **that** hung up on her ex-lover that she couldn't even handle them being in the same **zip code** without losing it? She hadn't even been in L.A. for an hour and she could feel her muscles screaming under layers of skin and tissue at the close proximity. Angel. God! How lame was she? Get within 30 miles of him and turn into a whiny school girl with a crush on the football captain. Like she _needed_ any more heart breaking reminders of her insane love life? The arrival and subsequent departure of Riley, Sam **and** her "relationship" with Spike just the week before were all still prominently fresh. Why not just toss a heaping handful of her 'uncontrollable, unidentifiable Angel feelings' into the blender as well and puree 'til frothy. Hell, add a paper umbrella while you're at it. Heartbreak smoothie, anyone?

Shifting in her seat as she rolled to a stop at the intersection, her gaze shifted down from the glowing red of the traffic light and to the road ahead. The road ahead, where a large number of black, military-style Hum-Vees stood corralled together a mere twenty feet from where she was diligently waiting for the light to turn green. A large grouping of Hum-Vees, which were effectively **blocking** the road she needed to use to get out of L.A. and back to Sunnydale. Back to Sunnydale, where she would wake up dull-eyed and droopy-tailed tomorrow morning and wear her radio active green fashion nightmare in front of a hundred humans and demons alike. She really needed to stop trying to cheer herself up.

The intense feelings of unease and dread in her abdomen only increased as she slowly pulled up to the mess of haphazardly parked behemoths. She sincerely hoped there was nothing wrong with the roadway, as she saw nobody stationed to handle traffic flow and parked a few feet from the last Hum-Vee on outside perimeter. Anya would _seriously_ kill her if she came back a second later than estimated; she would also take Buffy's lateness in dress retrieval as a personal insult and a sign that she didn't think Anya was good enough to marry Xander or something equally dramatic. The ex-demon was definitely the very definition of a bridezilla. She should have been on the show as the queen of the 'zillas! Anya had gone so far in her 'perfect wedding' fanaticism as to make Buffy _swear_ an oath that she would keep hers and Willow's dresses in sight _at all times_, upon penalty of death (after the wedding was over of course)…though after seeing the dress she had to wear, dying didn't seem that bad really…and hey, the third time was the charm, right? Maybe she'd win the door prize.

Keeping her promise to the frazzled bride in mind (and not wanting Anya to somehow find out she had broken the vow) Buffy sighed again before stepping out of the car, sliding the car keys in her pocket, and tucking her shoulder length hair behind her ears. She gazed once more at all the vehicles scattered haphazardly in the street and draped the garment bags containing the dresses on her left forearm. Swinging the driver's side door to a close with a bump of her hip, she began trudging through the gravel in her three inch high heeled boots. It was not a fun task in itself, made even more so as she weaved between the stationary giants, searching for someone to speak to about the very inconvenient road block.

As she passed several more of the unmanned Hum-Vees, her apprehension only seemed to grow. The oddity of the military grade transport with no apparent military to man them; you'd think they would at least post someone to detour traffic! Stupid military. As she jumped on that particular train of thought, it sent her back down the path to last week's abysmal relationship quota; which she figured had to be a personal high. Old boyfriend shows up with new wife, ridiculously happy, and new boyfriend is only good for one thing so she dumps him. Cut to this week where she was apparently blocked into the city of the only man she'd ever loved, and tomorrow she'd be wearing the worst thing to be considered clothing since parachute pants. Her musings came to an abrupt halt when her gut (which had been steadily feeling worse the longer her time in L.A. grew) dropped straight to her toes as she heard a very familiar and well missed voice shout out: "Don't!"

Angel! Her mind jolted, speculations and theories of what he would be doing out here surrounded by all of these military vehicles running rampant in her brain.

Angel. Angel! Angel; surrounded by dozens of black, military style Hummers. What would the military want with a vampire? Not that the government abducting those of the supernatural variety was a new concept…Riley? She'd just seen him last week. Riley. He hated Angel as much as he hated Spike. Riley…who used to capture vampires like Angel and perform experiments on them. Make them less then what they were. Torture them and break their minds and spirits. Not that many vampires had spirits, but it was the principle of the thing.

Her heart sped up for the first time in months as she bundled the garment bag close to her chest and ran so fast she almost flew. It didn't matter that Angel had left her, that he had a new life, a new baby; or even a new love. She couldn't let Angel be tortured. She wouldn't. The split second it took her to get to him she also realized that she had been wrong in her assumption. There was no 'Agent Finn', and the weapons held by the 'soldiers' were normal guns, not the specialized fair used by the Initiative to incapacitate the otherworldly subjects they were interested in.

The scene she came upon was not a swarm of bloodthirsty demon hunters dragging an unconscious Angel to their facility…but a wall of commandos with standard machine guns on her right, and an older man holding a baby on the left, and Angel standing in the middle with his hands opened towards the ground in surrender. Dozens of eyes shifted to her as she appeared a mere twenty feet from where Angel stood, his eyes widening in overloaded panic as he looked straight ahead at the face of his only love. "Buffy," He uttered, softly and reverently as he always had. His eyes closed hopelessly and his head dropped slightly, as he recognized that her presence only made the situation worse. It only gave him more to lose.

The slayers eyes moved from left to right, taking in the entire scope of what she had stumbled onto. She wet her lips nervously and said the only thing she could; given the situation. "Angel. What's going on?" she readjusted the garment bag slowly, un-bunching it and draping it back over her left forearm so as to not wrinkle the dresses and bring an angry bridezilla-y vengeance on her person come tomorrow. Her right arm folded under her left as she fidgeted with all eyes on her, fingers playing with the cuff of the leather jacket Angel had bestowed on her six years ago; that she had of course been stupid enough to wear in 'his city'. She quickly took mental stock of the weapons she had: the pair of daggers Anya had given her for her birthday a few months before were sheathed inside her boots as always, she had two stakes in the left pocket of her jacket, her holy knuckles in the right, and Spike's Zippo in the front left pocket of her jeans. Pretty good for dress delivery service if she did say so herself…but she could get to none of her arsenal faster then a bullet could be released from one of the many guns trained on the old man holding the baby- not that her speed would matter with how far away she was. Shit. She knew she should have brought her crossbow.

A tall woman in a dark business suit and skirt that Buffy hadn't noticed in her initial inspection was standing with the group of would-be commandos, and she cleared her throat in annoyance at the interruption before speaking to Angel. "Oh, She's cute. Old girlfriend? Not that I don't find your sex life intriguing and all, you obviously have a thing for blondes-but can we ignore this annoyance and get to the point? You'd rather see the fanatic with your son than us? You've got to be kidding me!" The woman crossed her arms in front of her chest before shifting her full body weight to her other foot and addressing the man holding the baby "These are automatic weapons pointed at you!" She carelessly waived a hand at the army behind her, "They didn't have them in your time. They fire sixteen bullets per second! You're going to give us the kid Captain Holtz!"

Angel's eyes snapped open and his head whipped around to face 'Captain Holtz' as the other woman had dubbed him "If they were going to use them they would have already. They want my son alive." He barked. His fists clenching at the thought of any one of those bullets getting within a foot of his son. His son. Buffy's breath hitched as each of her hands tightened around opposite wrists. Angel's son. Angel's son was in trouble. Oh God. She forced herself not to move lest either side took her as a threat and hurt the baby. Angel's baby. Oh God. Her mind was reeling at the revelation, only for the world to snap back into focus when the man holding the baby smirked and retorted back "Something we all have in common!"

The air seemed to shiver on the far side of the old man just as the words left his mouth, and a brown robed demon with long stringy hair and face full of scars and skin grafts appeared. He scoffed at the group before speaking to the business woman standing with her armed men, "Not all of us Lilah! You do not want the child alive. You want the child dead. DEAD. That was our arrangement." The newly dubbed 'Lilah' tossed her hair and chuckled before responding, "Yeah. I'm a lawyer. Have you met me? That WAS our arrangement. We have a new arrangement now, and it's 'I'm keeping the baby'."

Buffy's teeth clamped down on her tongue as she struggled not to say anything to make the situation worse, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she made a stupid comment and got Angel or his son injured in any way. So far it seemed that everyone but the brown robed demon wanted Connor; but unharmed, and unharmed was good in her book, great even. There was no way she was going to allow anyone hurt Angel's miracle son. If only she could get a bit closer to the Captain Holtz, to get Connor away from the demon that wanted to cause him harm, she would be able to shield his body with her own as she got them to safety. No. Damn it. It wasn't going to work that easily, Angel would have already done that if it were possible. The old man…that 'Holtz' had probably threatened to kill Connor before he would be taken from him. Buffy was embarrassed to realize that she; the longest lived Vampire Slayer in the world was actually tearing up at the hopelessness of the situation. She sniffled slightly, refusing to cry in the face of so many adversaries, and refusing to let her inopportune tears fall and show weakness. Her vision blurred and colors bled together as the unshed tears warped her view of the situation. She focused her energies on listening, as Giles had taught her when one sense was incapacitated.

An enraged scream of "You can't do that!" came from the demon.

Lilah spoke back in her cool tones: "Ignore the loud mouth with the skin condition. He's impotent in our world, can't even touch things."

Holtz's gravelly declaration of "We're leaving." and the sound of gravel shifting in her direction, as if he had taken a couple slow steps and then halted.

Lilah's voice rose for the first time as she sharply stated "No one's going anywhere."

Buffy heard more gravel shift on her left and the sound of a fist hitting flesh as she tried desperately to will away the barrier of tears blocking her vision. She needed to see! She was a vampire slayer for pities sake, one of the chosen two! She shouldn't be struggling to hold back tears; trying save face…not when there was an innocent life in danger. There was no way she should be this useless in a life or death situation; even if it did involve the emotional upheaval that always accompanied anything 'Angel related.'

Her prayers were either unheard or unanswered; as the distraction of her inner turmoil allowed someone to get close enough to press their gun barrel firmly against her left temple. The shock of feeling the cool metal against her skin snapped the fragile control she had on her turbulent emotions, and the tears she had tried so desperately to hide poured down her cheeks in rivers of sorrow. Both a blessing and a curse, as with her eyes cleared she was able to see, though at the price of losing face in front of so many. Angel was directly ahead of her, his eyes wide and face slackened as he gaped at her situation and her attacker. The Demon to her left was looking more irritated by the minute, a fallen commando lay where Holtz had been, and the cold hearted woman and her army of men had all turned to face Buffy, their rifles automatically trained on her frozen form.

The barrel on her skin pressed deeper, and she felt the warm air of his breath rush past her exposed left ear as he spoke "A little small to use as an effective shield my dear, but you'll do," she could feel the heat of his body at her back, it made her squirm in disgust until she felt something small moving against her right side. Someone small…Connor! Connor and Holtz were behind her. The revelation that she was helping to protect the innocent child of the man she loved brought a fresh wave of tears, and she couldn't help but exhale "Connor," softly as she felt what could only be his tiny hand playing with the jacket on the right side of her back. Hearing her soft spoken exclamation; Angel sprung into action as one of the commandos stupidly took a step forward, knocking him down swiftly and taking his weapon away before turning it on Lilah.

"Don't shoot." She ordered, both to Angel and her own employees.

He shifted the gun, finger unwavering on the trigger "Yeah. You really don't want to. Your bullets won't kill me. But mine will definitely kill you." He ended with a smirk.

Angel looked back over at Buffy, Holtz and his son, smirk falling as his eyes took in her tearstained face before looking past her.

Holtz shifted closer behind her, trying to use as much of the smaller body as possible "They'll both be dead before I hit the ground." he promised.

"I know."

Holtz's deeper tone hesitated a second before replying, "So, I'm going to leave now, right? With me, he gets to live, anyone tries to stop me, and Connor dies."

Angel paused, staring over my shoulder at his child's kidnapper and after a long drawn out beat spoke, "Take him."

The demon that had been quiet, though obviously agitated, now seemed infuriated as he spat out "Whoa! No! NO! What is wrong of you people?"

Neither Holtz nor Angel acknowledged the protesting demon, as Holtz responded with "I will take good care of him, as though he were my own son. He'll never even know you existed. Don't come after me. - You will though, won't you? Maybe I should just..." Buffy heard him shift and felt the gun removed from her head. Moved to what she could only assume was Connor's. Oh God. Connor. This guy had a gun trained on Angel's son. He was nuts, he had to be nuts. Whatever issues he had with Angel, you just didn't do that! He's human too. God! This guy has a soul? How could you threaten to hurt a baby? He was just a little guy too she thought, as she could still feel him touching her back, playing with the leather jacket without a care; as the lunatic holding him in mortal peril threatened to end his short life.

She couldn't be quiet anymore. She had to draw the attention away from Connor; away from that sweet baby whose life was hanging in the balance, the sweet baby who was playing with the jacket his father gave gifted her with so long ago. "No. Please…Don't." It was the first she had spoken since her question to Angel so many minutes ago…minutes that felt like forever. Her soft spoken statement startled the kidnapper's attentions back to her presence, and he quickly pressed the barrel of the gun against the left side of her neck. "Ah, so she can speak…Buffy is it?" The blond slayer bobbed her head once for yes, not wanting to give her verbal vomit a chance at spewing everywhere and pissing off the loony with the gun. Apparently it wasn't such a great idea though, as a the butt of the handgun came in direct contact with the back of her skull; not only causing stars to burst behind her eyes, but dazing her enough to grab a large handful of hair, with his gun hand. The heavy metal of the gun pressing against her already abused cranium caused a new stab of pain as tilted her dazed and now bleeding head too far to the left. 'I should have gotten a shorter hair style,' was surprisingly the only thought that made it through her the mental quicksand.

"Angelus, why didn't you tell me you had a mate? Does she know that you've been unfaithful? Does she know that the baby she's trying to protect is nothing but a symbol of your infidelity with your dark whore of a sire? Tell me Angelus, does your mate know how little you really care for her? For you to mark her and seek the bed of another?" Buffy tried hard to concentrate on the words being spoken, but guns digging into your skull while a madman used it as a medium between your skull and your hair is unsurprisingly uncomfortable. It was more then uncomfortable actually, but her mind was too busy trying to stay afloat in the haze her mind was encamped in. "Mate?" was all the petite girl managed to utter confusedly-as he jerked her head painfully to the side. She couldn't regain footing at this angle, and kept stumbling trying to maintain some sort of balance. The harsh laughter that resounded from all sides at her uttered question was like an echo in a cave, or maybe it was just in her head. Holtz was breathing on her neck, chuckling darkly, and she heard a snort of laughter from the bitch in the power suit, while her cronies chortled away. Even the skin graft poster boy got a good laugh out of it; maybe she should give up slaying and become a comedian she pondered dizzily as everyone laughed at her. Everyone but Angel. His nostrils flared as he struggled between his vampire visage and human mask, eyes darting back and forth between the grip on Buffy and the space behind her where Connor had fisted his little hand into the leather. "What is so damn funny?" she exhaled, still trying to focus on keeping upright so that the harsh tugging on her bleeding scalp would lessen.

It was the lawyer that answered, her tone scathingly drawled out "Only that our boy Angel here pretends to be so righteous and good, and yet is such a coward that he'll make a girl his mate without even telling her about it. Then goes and bones his sire and has a child out of wedlock. For shame Angel!" She shook a pointed finger at him mockingly, "What would your precious bastard son think about your strong moral fiber and family values when he finds he was the product of adultery?" Buffy's head spun at the accusation. What?! Angel and she weren't married! She'd never been married before, ever! And she was certain she would definitely remember if she were married. Her eyes shifted down to the dress bags still held, the bridesmaid dresses that she and Willow had to wear tomorrow. Anya and Xander's wedding was tomorrow. Anya! Oh man she was going to kill Buffy for being so late! Buffy's eyes followed the curve of the bag still draped on her left arm, down to the silver claddagh ring she had rescued from the mansion when Angel left her. Her heart nearly stopped as recognition flooded her "We're Married?" she questioned him, staring into his eyes from her precarious tilt. Silently begging for the truth.

Lilah interjected before he could answer "As much as you can be, that's one hell of a bite mark you got there Honey! Not from a quick feeding; Shows you're marked, you're his. Think the vampire version of a Vegas wedding, and that's what you got! But then, of course since that little bundle of sticky is behind you; and it's Darla's, we all have a pretty good idea as to how our "Champion of Justice" over here feels about the sanctity of marriage." her eyes were like chips of ice as she smiled.

Buffy swallowed deeply. Married. She was married. She recalled a conversation with Riley over his sisters wedding, a bunch of traditional Irish customs that they were performing for it. Exchanging claddagh rings was one of them. The realization struck her deeply; if the bite mark made her his wife in vampire custom…then the claddagh ring made her his wife in his native human custom. He was twice damned, if she had anything to say about it. God. They were married, twice over! And he still left. God he must have really wanted to get away from her. The thought felt like icicles dripping down her spine. God, he must hate her.

Buffy's inner torment was interrupted by the relatively quiet enrobed demon as he raised his hands towards the sky. "Yeah. No, you see as fun as this soap opera 'my so called vamp' is… LEKKO NAJINE FORKAHDIO!" a large explosion and a series of bright sparks ripped through the air, as a large tear appeared a couple feet behind where Holtz and Buffy stood. Past the burning edges of the tear, a turbulent blood red sky could be clearly seen; bolts of lightening relayed frequently across the horizon.

The demon smirked and lowered his arms to his sides "What you are looking into is the Quor-Toth; the absolute darkest of the dark worlds. Scary things are scared of this dimension. So - I can widen the portal and you can all be swallowed up by a world you don't even want to try to imagine - or you can keep your word and kill that child." He pointedly looked at Lilah, "NOW!"

When no one moved, he spread his arms in a wide sweeping motion; causing the tear to widen. "Don't say I didn't warn you." He chortled, as the once small tear in reality continued to grow increasingly larger.

Lilah was the first to react, "KILL IT," some of her men moved to tighten their trigger fingers, still trained on the hostage situation, as Angel barked out "No!"

The commandos readjusted their rifles to train on Angel as the large cadre of men and one vampire stood with the weapons aimed at each other. Holtz took the opportune distraction and wrenched Buffy's head around by her hair, before depositing Connor into her arms. She had just managed to juggle the squirming infant and the bridesmaid dresses in her arms before she was pitched by her hair into the wide open portal behind her. Angel dropped his gun immediately at the sight and charged after her.

"No!" he bellowed as he sprinted to her aid. He felt his steps becoming heavier as Buffy, with Connor cradled securely against her chest fell backwards into the roiling red air of the portal and disappeared from his view. Angel tried jumping after them, but was thrown back by a lighting bolt lashing out from the portal and hitting him full in the chest. The frantic champion flew through the air from the impact and landed on his back with a hard thud. He rolled quickly to look in disbelief at the portal as Sahjhan chose that moment to speak again.

"Wow. I didn't count on that…Kinda takes care of my problem." He looked almost happy as he raised his hands again to the heavens and chanting "Forkahdio najine lekko." His words made the hole in the air quickly shrink to a pinpoint and disappear. He dusted his hands off on one another and smugly looked down at Angel's prone and disbelieving form, who was still laying on his stomach, staring at the place the portal used to be "All right then. Have a good summer." The demons parting words hung in the air as he disappeared.

Lilah looked down at Angel, who hadn't moved and was still staring at empty space before shrugging her shoulders and turning to leave "Hmph! Well, I'm looking at a mountain of paperwork." The commander of the regime looked to her questioningly before asking "Ma'am should we do something about..." he didn't finish the question but gestured his rifle to the still vampire. Lilah paused for a second in her stride before looking over her shoulder at Angel and replying, "Yes, we should. - We should let him suffer."

As the small army of men retreated back to their vehicles, Holtz used the opportunity to unload the magazine of the stolen 45 handgun into the back of Angel's knees. The vampire growled in the agony of it, his screams prompting Justine into action and dragging Holtz towards the SUV she had stolen from Wesley.

Angel's attention moved from the empty air, through the haze of pain to look around him. He sees Justine and Holtz drive off in Wesley's car and attempted to move onto all fours, regardless of his shattered bones before collapsing back onto the hard ground, eyes once again searching the air where the portal used to be. Where Buffy used to be. Where Connor used to be. Gone now. He just couldn't understand it, his mind replaying the scene over and over again, even as his legs screamed in agony.

"No." his hands jerked, fingers clawing and breaking into the ground. "No." he repeated desperately, a growl starting to form in his chest as his mind struggled to come to terms with what had just happened. "NO." he denied once more, shaking his head vehemently. His face changed then, the demon mask covering his normally handsome face, now twisted and warped into a grimace of pain as he howled his denial to the skies, to the very heavens, until his words became nothing more then guttural growls.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

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T.B.C

This is truly my first posted BtVS/AtS fanfiction, and I would love any feedback given. I do plan to continue the story, as once the idea had seeded in my mind it just wouldn't go away until I wrote it out.


	3. Chapter One: Home Sweet Hell

Hello readers, please don't kill me for this meager offering. It's a small but important chapter in my eyes. I plan to write more over the weekend, now that I have a break from school.

_**Reviews are loved.**_

Chapter One: "Home Sweet Hell"

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Interdimensional travel is not the way to fly. Being forcibly propelled there by your abused cranium, courtesy of a loony with a yen for vengeance on your ex-honey made it even _less_ appealing.

This is what Buffy Summers pondered while floundering flat on her back for air, her teary eyes only able to discern shades of red and bursts of light. Having the wind knocked out of you didn't add anything bright and cheery to the Frommer's guide either.

This Quartz-Toffee placed sucked. Big Time.

The crinkle of plastic and subtle squirming from her chest reminded her of the reason she was here. Angel's son. Her hands hooked under his little armpits as she shifted him and was finally able to expand her lungs and welcome some fresh ai-ew. Mega ew. The petite blond shifted the child into her left arm and managed to get her right elbow propped on the ground. She needed to see where that smell was coming from.

A quick scan of the landscape and several breaths later, the green-eyed woman realized two things. One this hell-dimension wasn't the worst she had been to. And two, the air was fine...that smell was coming from Connor.

The realization made her close her eyes tightly and hang her head in horror. Connor needed to be changed. She was in a hell dimension. A hell dimension which probably didn't have a handy little restroom and baby changing station. Or baby wipes. Or Diapers.

She shifted slightly, still laying on the ground with a baby on her left hip as she balanced on her right hip and elbow, she grit her teeth at the shitty situation she was in.

Heh, shitty situation. Well, at least her sense of humor was coming back somewhat after recent events.

She firmed her resolve before shifting to a sitting position slowly, juggling the baby and the garment bags in her lap as she crossed her legs underneath her.

She couldn't help but stare at the delicate child in front of her, her green eyes taking in every minute detail about the miracle in her arms. He was an honest to god, warm, and wriggling...most importantly alive baby boy. Darla and Angel's baby boy. How was that even possible? Willow had never gone into the birds and the bees details of it at the time, and honestly she herself was too far gone to care about the specifics of it as her own heart ached at the knowledge that it had happened.

The little guy was looking up at her with huge impossibly blue eyes, gumming his right fist while his other shakily wavered in her direction as though he were reaching out for her. For her. She couldn't help but hug his tiny body to her chest as her eyes threatened to overflow with tears again.

She knew that no matter who his mother was, this tiny baby had firmly taken hold of her heart in that moment. She would protect him to her last breath. Heaven. Hell. Earth. Sunnydale. What difference did it make? She was going to make sure this little guy had the best she could offer him. Quartz-Toffee or no!

Feeling teeny fingers playing with the ends of her hair, she managed to wrap the too large leather jacket she wore around both of them, cradling the baby against her chest as she stood to seek shelter in the sparse, crackled landscape.

She spotted a cave not far from where she stood, and started moving toward it at a brisk pace when winds started picking up all around them. Making sure to keep Connor's head buried against her neck and out of the harsh wind and bits of sand, she kept hold on the would-be bridesmaid dresses as well, remembering what the crusty demon had said about this world.

Scary things get scared here eh? Well wait until they got a load of these dresses.

Simply terrifying.

* * *

So yeah, I know it's short but I promise more BuffyConnor bonding next chapter, a much lengthier, in depth and awesome (hopefully) Chapter 2.


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